Date: Pre-recorded session to listen to during week of Feb 24 - Feb 28 | Saturday 1 March in person at the Essex Church W8 4RT 10.30am-12.30pm and 2.00-4.00pm

Fitcher’s Bird, Bluebeard and variants (Mr. Fox, Robber Bridegroom, and others) are some of the most memorably shocking of all the stories collected by Grimm and others. This seminar will offer insights from developmental and archetypal psychology to explore this secretive and often dismembering power in all of us and explore how this might also be the source of transformation and new life.

Taking time to delve into the murky and often painful place of destructive elemental, vibrational, archetypal forces is to embark on a ‘night-sea’ journey. One can only hope that this is a journey from pathology to wholeness and healing. Questions will arise – what do we do when the destructive force is an actual person in our lives, what is the role of the archetypal demon in psyche, how, can and should this power be transformed? These are just some of the difficult questions we will face together.

Please note: There is no actual Friday night session - the first seminar will be pre-recorded so you can listen at your leisure. Jane will read both Bluebeard and Fitcher’s Bird and then offer a few reflections around the themes of love, power, destruction and transformation.  

The recording will be emailed to you on Monday 24th Feb, or upon registration and will be available to view online for one week only. Please do not make a copy of this or use the material without the speaker’s permission.

On Saturday (in person) we dive further into the themes through individual experiential work the symbols in the tales. Each task is followed by reflection and discussion. The safe container of a room together in the flesh will hopefully allow us to re-member ourselves, to bring forth our own power and potential that may have been rejected, neglected, cut off or simply forgotten. This is an in-depth exploration of dis-membering and re-membering in the bloody chamber and its role in psychological healing and transformation.

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Jane Bacon, PhD, is a Senior Jungian Analyst (IGAP, IAAP, UKCP)and Supervisor, Focusing Trainer, Teacher of the Discipline of Authentic Movement (www.disciplineofauthenticmovement.com) and Emerita Professor of Dance and Somatics at University of Chichester. She has a private practice in Northampton, UK offering individual psychotherapy and supervision as well as offering Authentic Movement groups and retreats in Northampton, London and internationally and calls ‘Creative Articulations Process’ workshops and mentoring with her collaborator Prof Vida Midgelow (UAL). A list of recent publications, artistic installations and workshops focusing on the relationship between psyche and soma can be found at www.janebacon.net and www.choreographiclab.co.uk.

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The Complete First Edition, The Original Fold and Fairly Tales of the Brothers Grimm. Translated and edited by Jack Zipes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University.

Von Franz, ML. Individuation in Fairy Tales, London: Shambhala, 1990

Additional Reading:

Carter, A - The Bloody Chamber and other tales, Vintage Classics 1995.

Dieckmann, H -Twice-Told Tales, Chiron 1978.

Estes, CP -Women Who Run With The Wolves, Rider London 1992

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